Planet of the Titans

Chapter 2

The group of six former captives made their way along the side of the building to the front, and saw the quad of Crestwood University. Huge concrete walkways stretched from a central point and fanned out to form four diagonals. There was a water fountain in the center of the quad.

"It feels warm here for some reason," said Carmen.

"We were pulled into the southern hemisphere of this planet," said Leo Tanner, "so the seasons must be reversed, just like Australia is back on our world. It was the middle of Winter when we left Earth, so it must be the middle of Summer here in this region of Thanatar!"

"You're the boss, Captain Tanner!" said Nolan Ward. "What should we do?"

"Call me Leo! We're all in this crazy mess together, so we might as well be on a first name basis. We need to see if we can get to a secluded wooded area."

"Then going across the quad doesn't make much sense!" said Nolan. "I think we should go to the back of the campus and try to find our way off campus that way!"

"I agree with Nolan," said Mason. "If this campus is anything like Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, we might find a stream near campus that should lead us to a rural area. I know when we were descending in the Thunderbolt, this town seemed more medium-sized, not huge like Los Angeles. And I do recall seeing some streams winding through the town."

"I think we should break up into two groups," said Nolan, "because the odds of our capture are higher if we're together!"

"I disagree," said Leo. "We need to stick together! I'm going to find a way to get us back to Earth, even if it means I have to stay behind. When Future Shock hired me, I pledged to look after my passengers under any circumstances, including something as crazy as this!"

"I agree with the Captain," said Nolan's half-sister Natalie Red Hawk. "If we split up, we wouldn't be able to communicate with each other."

"Mason said there's a stream cutting through town," said Leo, "I think if we head South, we should get there and we can follow the stream."

All four of the passengers decided to follow Leo and Mason. It was night time, but Leo and Mason each had a small flashlight they could use.

"I've got an idea," said Leo. "If we set out in one specific direction without knowing where the stream is, we don't know where we could end up. I say the four passengers stay here on campus behind the building we escaped from, and Mason will head west and I'll head south, and we'll meet up here at daybreak. One of us should've found a stream by then."

"Sounds okay to me!" said Nolan, as he sat down and reclined against the school building with his arms behind his back.

"If we're not back within a half hour after daybreak, assume we've been captured and try to evade any giants!" said Leo and he turned and walked away with Mason. Leo headed south, and Mason headed west.

Mason did his best to stay away from spots where he could be easily seen. He walked in the gutters and under shuttle cruisers. Soon, he came to an area where some college students were having a party. Since he was still close to the University campus where Darian went to school, he had inadvertently stumbled onto a sorority house where the party was in full swing.

"It must be Saturday night here on their world, too!" said Mason to himself.

Meanwhile, Leo found a radio tower that served as a communications nexus for the college radio station. He easily walked through the chain link fence and made his way to the tower.

"If I can climb high enough, I should be able to see where the streams are in this town!" said Leo.

Climbing the tower was easier said than done, however; Leo could see an area about fifty feet off the ground where there was a grid built into the tower that had rungs that were small enough for him to grab onto, but the question was how to scale those first fifty feet.

Back at the sorority party, Mason was trapped. The drunk women in their early 20's stumbled around the front lawn of the sorority mansion carrying their cups of beer, and some of them stumbled into the road as Mason hid in the gutter beneath a shuttle cruiser.

"Damn drunk bitches!" said Mason. "I'm gonna be stuck here all night if this party doesn't die down soon!"

Just then, a drunk college girl stumbled into the area right above the curb where Mason was hiding.

"I think I'm going to puke!" said the young woman, and she bent over to vomit. Mason, seeing that he was right in the path of any vomit that might come down, ran out from under the shuttle cruiser into plain sight.

"Look!" said the drunk college student. "A little person!"

Several of the women approached the curb to see what the first woman was talking about, and a brunette spotted Mason. She thrust her mid-calf boot down on one side of Mason, then stomped down on his other side with her other boot. Before Mason could react, she had bent down and grabbed him.

"We've got another captive for the party game!" said the brunette. "Hello, little man! My name is Stephanie!"

"Stephanie," said a short burly blonde woman, "maybe we shouldn't swallow him, he might belong to someone!"

"I don't care!" said Stephanie. "If he goes to Arcadia it's just a matter of time before he gets swallowed anyway!"

Mason was held firmly in the hands of the mighty giantess, unable to escape. He could still breathe without difficulty, but if she tightened her grip she could easily crush him as if he were a mouse.

"Let me tell you something!" said Stephanie the brunette to the stout blonde, gesturing while waiving her arms,"if someone was stupid enough to let a little person escape, then they had it coming!" With the last few syllables, Stephanie accidentally loosened her grip on Mason, and he went flying through the air and landed on the lawn. Because the sorority girls were drunk, their reaction time was slowed down, giving Mason enough time to flee back into the gutter.

The drunk women looked for him, but they couldn't find him. Mason went back the way he had came, heading back to the University campus in defeat at having not found a stream. Although he had failed in his mission, he was grateful to have escaped the drunken giantess who wanted to use him for a drinking game in which he would've been swallowed.

Meanwhile, Leo was having better luck climbing the radio tower. Because it was dark, he hadn't seen a cable that stretched from a third of the way up the tower to the ground, before disappearing into a pipe. By climbing the cable, Leo was able to make it to the point fifty feet up where the grid started. The grid wasn't designed for human hands, but formed diamond patterns across its entirety. Each diamond shape was about two feet across and one foot high, so it functioned as a ladder for someone from Earth.

Leo climbed several hundred feet, but still wasn't as high as the elevation of a one-story house on Thanatar. This wasn't the work for someone who was afraid of heights, but luckily, Logan was born to be a pilot and was completely unafraid. It took the better part of an hour of steady climbing before he was high enough to see the layout of the town. As he looked around, he could see that Mason was correct, there were hills and streams that were visible. He could see the trees that lined the edges of the nearest stream.

Leo memorized the location and approximate distance of the nearest stream, and then began climbing down. He made his way back to the campus, and found the other five escapees before daybreak.

"No luck, Mason?" Leo asked.

"No, I got captured by a drunk sorority girl, but I got away. How about you?"

"I found a stream!" said Leo. "I know how to get there!"

"How do you know where a stream is?" Mason asked. "Did you find a map?"

"No, I climbed a radio tower and I was able to see the layout of the land." Leo motioned to the others. "Everyone, follow me! The distance is close from the perspective of a giant, but at our diminutive size, it will take us a while longer!"

The six escapees made their way along the gutters of the college town, under shuttle cruisers and in the direction that Logan instructed them. They didn't pass by the same street where the sorority girl had captured Mason, but by daybreak they arrived at the stream Leo had spotted from the radio tower. There was an embankment that was five or six feet down from a giant's perspective, but from an Earthling's perspective, it was several hundred feet down. There was a path they could follow that made their trek easier.

"I don't like this!" said Natalie. "There could be wild animals down here!"

"Well, what would you prefer?" Nolan asked. "Being back under Darian's power and forced to be a game piece on Arcadia, or being free but in a little bit of danger?"

"I guess you're right!" said Natalie. "This is such a strange world! They're thousands of years ahead of us technologically, but they have the mentality of the ancient Romans! Forcing little people to play games where the loser is captured or devoured!"

"Well, nobody ever said life made sense!" said Nolan.

"This society relies on slaves, without it, their economy would collapse!" said Tyler. "Darian herself tried to explain that to us."

"I wonder why we haven't heard of a lot more people ending up here!" said Carmen. "It must take a lot of little people our size to fuel the gaming mecca of Arcadia!"

"I think other people from our world have ended up here," said Tyler, “but they were never heard from again, so they couldn't come back and talk about it!"

"I guess that's true!" said Carmen.

The little people made their way along the stream, with Leo taking the lead while Mason was in the rear with a branch and leaves brushing their footprints clean.

"We should be walking single file to hide our numbers," said Leo, "even though Mason is wiping our trail clear, just so we get in the habit of walking this way."

After several hours passed, they decided to make a camp.

"It's about noon," said Leo, "we should set up camp here, but in the meantime I'm sending Mason out to find food."

Mason set out as Leo instructed. They hadn't eaten since they had eaten those protein bars Darian had given them the day before. Mason found his way to a park, where he saw some women playing volleyball. He made his way back to the camp to inform the others.

"I found a park where some women are playing volleyball," said Mason, "and there's a blanket with a picnic basket! We should be able to go in and take what we need without their knowing we were there!"

Leo, Mason, Nolan, and Tyler headed toward the park, with Mason in the lead. They were able to climb into the picnic basket because of the rungs on the basket acting as ladder rungs. The giant women were so involved in their game that the little people weren't spotted. After Leo, Mason, and Tyler had enough food, they told Nolan to forget about getting more and to come with them.

"Forget it, I'm not going back empty handed!" said Nolan. "I'll just jump in there and grab some dessert!"

As Nolan climbed into the picnic basket, the giantesses finished their game and headed back toward the blanket.

"Nolan, we have to leave! The giants are coming!" Leo shouted, but Nolan remained inside the picnic basket.

"Forget about Nolan," said Leo, "we have to spare ourselves! Let's get back to the camp!"

The three men were on the edge of the park when they saw the giant women surround the picnic basket. Nolan was easily captured within less than a minute. A blonde giantess held him firmly in her right fist.

"Now where did you come from, tiny one?" the giantess asked.

"I'm from Earth!" said Nolan.

"But aren't you all?" the giantess asked. "At least, from some version of Earth. Who did you escape from?"

Nolan was silent.

"If you won't tell me, then I'll just keep you!" said the blonde giantess.

"Are you going to use him for a sex toy?" one of the other women asked. The other women in their group started laughing.

"I might at some point, who knows?" said the blonde giantess. "I think I'm going to train him to be a game piece on Arcadia!" The giantess smiled at her tiny captive. "Don't worry, little man! I'll only play against other women, so if you lose, you'll end up in the belly of someone beautiful!"

"Thanks for reassuring me!" said Nolan sarcastically.